BC Bank Master, electronic BC Index or online Inquiry BC Number

• How do they each differ?
  BC Bank Master (in ASCII or in Excel), electronic BC Index and Inquiry BC Number are extracts of the centrally operated SIX Interbank Clearing data bank, the so-called "Stammdatenservice" (SDS), which is updated daily. These extracts contain information about 400 financial institutions with more than 3,200 bank branches, and 1,200 bank clearing numbers based on change orders by the financial institutions participating in the payment systems services offered by the SIX Group.
  
  BC Bank Master is an electronic databank. It is well suited for updating existing bank data in software programs based on BC number in credit, debit and general payment traffic applications. It can also be used as the master file for settlement runs.
  
  Electronic BC Index is a PC module and is primarily used for inquiries of bank clearing numbers via search criteria as for instance BC number, name of financial institution, locality etc.
  
  Inquiry BC number is an online Internet search option, supporting quick location of BC numbers, financial institutions, branches, and additional information.

Download BC Bank Master

• Which are the technical requirements for downloading the BC Bank Master?
  You need Adobe Acrobat ("Reader") and WinZip in order to access the pdf and zip files.
  The records description is in pdf and the download file is compressed (zip), enabling faster downloading. To decompress the files, you will need WinZip.
  
  
• How can data be entered and integrated
  In general:
  Various software producers have installed an interface to BC Bank Master. Please inquire with your software provider.
  
  If you run into difficulties, please contact your IT specialists. Unfortunately we are unable to offer software support services.
  
  SAP application:
  It is not possible to integrate the BC Bank Master automatically in release SAP R/3. Up until release 4.6A, two OSS notes (Online Services System Notes) 113161 and 160963 must be changed and entered manually in program code (ABAP). After this adaptation, the Bank Master Data File 2000 can be downloaded from the Internet, extracted and uploaded with report RFBVCH_0.
  
  Starting with release 4.6B the correction will be standard. The SAP notes also contain information as to which releases need the corrections and other specific data.
  
  If special characters cannot be accounted for when importing in ASCII format, the data can be imported with code page 1100, using the BAUP transaction, in an SAP Unicode System as of Release 620 (format 2, bank master 2000). For release 620-640 only with the note 757037.

Technical information about the content of the BC Bank Master

• The same BC number can be used more than once. Is there a specific key identifying these entries in a databank or elsewhere?
  Since the same BC number can and does appear more than once (e.g. for different bank branches), it is indeed not suitable as an identifying key. However, during registration of each BC number an additional number is automatically added – the so-called branch ID. This number is never changed. A combination of BC number and Branch ID can therefore be used as an identifying key.
  
  
• The field BC_Art lists the individual entries as head office, main branch, or branch. What exactly does this mean and can a financial institution label several branches with the same BC no.?
  Generally, financial institutions have the following structure:
  
  1 Head Office
  0 to n Main Branch
  0 to n Branches
  
  The following codes are used in the BC_Art field:
  
  1 = Head Office
  2 = Main Branch
  3 = Branches
  
  Branches usually have the same BC numbers as their respective main branch or head office. The payment traffic is processed using the BC number of the main branch or the head office.
  
  
• What's the significance of the field 'BC number new'?
  The field 'BC number new' is used to identify so-called concatenations (e.g. as a result of a takeover, fusion or merger) where an existing BC number is combined with another BC number (BC number new). A concatenation always uses the branch ID '0000' of the new BC number. If the 'BC number new' field contains an entry, the record still has the address data of the old BC number as they existed before the date of concatenation (mutation date), that is, the original information is kept.
  
  Concatenated BC numbers are deleted in general after two years.